


Of Snow and Mistletoes

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Advent Calendar, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Mistletoes, SO MUCH FLUFF, Snow, just all the really good christmas stuff we love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: ~ Merlin generally wouldn't be into Mall Santas, but this one simply won't leave him alone ~~ Arthur has never liked Christmas, and that certainly won't change just because of a teacher who shouldn't be so much fun. Right? ~Falling in love can be soft if you land on snow :)
Relationships: Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Kudos: 24





	Of Snow and Mistletoes

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I haven't been on here as much during the last months, mainly because I was working on something purely original (yay! :D), but I still thought it would be fun to do some little thing for the holidays.  
And since I have been binge-watching Merlin again these past few weeks, this idea didn't take too long to unfold in my mind.
> 
> Anyways, here's "Of Snow and Mistletoes", which is supposed to be kind of an Advent Calendar for you guys, where the events in the story will take place at the same time as our own lives.
> 
> And since we do have St. Nick's today, let's start it off :)
> 
> (As always, I hope you like it, and sorry for any mistakes, English is not my main writing language)

6th of December

Did Merlin Emrys deeply care for his students?

Yes.

Did he still hate where he ended up though?

Also, yes.

Because even though Merlin only wanted the best for his students and couldn’t say no when they asked him for a field trip to the local mall to see Santa (in his defence, they somehow managed to connect the topic really well to the study of different religions they were doing in class right now), he deeply regretted it now. As it turns out, there were way better things to do on a Friday evening than standing in line with twenty screaming 11 - 12-year-old children in an overheated mall, no matter how much he cared about his kids.

Speaking of overheated, he also couldn’t quite picture how the man disguised as Santa could still be alive in his big suite – plus a child sitting on top of him most of the time.

But then again, he didn’t mind. This weird Santa was kind of unsympathetic, he barely smiled for the pictures, seemed to give snarky comments all the time and even scared off one kid so badly that it started crying, so Merlin already concluded that he did not like this Santa.

This feeling only confirmed itself when it was finally Merlin's first student's turn and the Santa said “Ho ho ho” in such an uninterested voice that Merlin had to fight the urge to slap him.

“Well, you seem like you’re in the holiday spirit…” Merlin grumbled quietly more to himself, but obviously, he hadn’t said it quietly enough.

“I’m what?”

Oh darn.

Merlin looked up at him slowly and the Santa met him with a bewildered look in his eyes. He seemed to have caught him totally off guard.

Santa shoved the kid he just had on his lap rudely off of him, and even if it hadn’t been one of his students – Merlin wasn’t going to let that go so easily, so he put on a smile and proceeded to look at Santa without blinking.

“Well, as grumbly as you are right now, you certainly act more like Krampus than Santa.”

“Hey, watch your mouth”, Santa countered still slightly laughing in disbelief and Merlin first noticed, how young that voice sounded. “Or you and your kids will make it into the naughty list for sure!”

Santa did not seem to notice how unfaced Merlin’s students seem to be by this revelation. They were eleven, they just wanted to go here to miss some classes, and both them and Merlin knew.

_But_ Santa’s statement made him raise an eyebrow and made Merlin want to tease him just for the heck of it. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t make it onto your good list as well. You’re scaring all of the kids.”

“No, I’m not”, Santa frowned and Merlin had to scoff.

“Yes, you are.”

“_No_, I’m not. The kids love me.”

Merlin just blankly stared at him as Santa wanted to prove him wrong by giving the girl that was with him right now a wide grin.

Needless to say, that girl ended up crying and running back to her mom in a hurry.

“So, you’re good with them, right?” Merlin asked again sarcastically, but Santa still didn’t seem willing to give up.

And Merlin didn’t think he had ever met someone so stupidly stubborn before.

“Oh come on, little girls get scared at everything. And how old was she? Like four, maybe?”

“She was definitely over seven”, Merlin half-whispered again, but Santa seemed to be too preoccupied with the next one of his students now.

“Aye there little lad, you love Santa, right? So, what do you want for Christmas? Some nice… socks maybe?”

Merlin knew that he was done for when he called an eleven-year-old, a ‘little lad’, because that was exactly the one thing you should never, ever say to an eleven-year-old, and he could speak from experience.

And, true to what Merlin expected, the ‘little lad’ just blinked a few times at Santa before standing up again. “Sir, you seriously suck”, he said nonchalantly as he walked back to Merlin again and gave him a high-five while he passed.

It was safe to say that Merlin could not wipe that grin off of his face anytime soon, and luckily, he didn’t even have a reason for that. Instead, he just directed it towards Santa, who now rolled his eyes.

“Oh, knock it off, will you? I’m only here to please my dad anyways; I could be good with the kids if I would actually try.”

Merlin just nodded his head sarcastically. “Sure you would. In some far, far off parallel universe maybe.”

There was a smile forming on Santa’s lips now as well, and even though it was only small and could hardly be seen with all that beard, it made Merlin a bit giddy to have finally gotten some sort of sympathetic reaction.

After all, Merlin tried picturing what the man might look like without his costume while he traced down his profile – he wondered if his hair might be brown or black, if his jawline would still be as sharp and if his eyes… his eyes…

Oh god, he had been staring.

He quickly averted his gaze as he noticed that the smiles on both of their faces had slowly decreased and he had never been gladder that he could simply blame the heat for his face lighting up.

But there, yep, crap, Santa's smile grew wider yet again as their eyes locked again.

“So, what’s your name then, child whisperer?”

Alright, he’ll give it to him, that was kind of funny, and alone for that, he wanted to answer him.

“It’s…”

“Mr Emrys, can we move on now?” A girl started whining before he had a chance to finish his sentence. “This Santa’s no fun and we still want to see the Christmas market!” She explained even though barely two of Merlin’s students had ended up talking to Santa, but Merlin just rolled his eyes.

He knew their tricks, and he would lie if he said that he didn’t also adore them for it. Merlin took another glance at Santa and met his smile with a half nod, which he hoped looked somehow self-assured, before he turned back to the mass of kids that had gathered around him, all looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

He waited for a few seconds more, just wanting to tease them a little bit, before he couldn’t help but erupt into laughter. “Alright guys, let’s storm the Christmas market!”

After his words, it seemed as if a storm had unleashed. Kids were screaming joyfully, gripping him and tearing him with them everywhere they could reach and Merlin kind of felt as if he had been taken hostage by a pack of wolfs.

“Woah, slow down!” He shouted as they nearly made him stumble, but because he was also laughing, his claims weren’t taken very seriously.

“Christmas Market! Christmas Market!” was the only call that filled the mall for a few minutes, and Merlin could just pray to the gods that no one would file a noise complaint.

He also looked back at Santa one last time; He was full-on laughing now, nearly falling off of his big red chair.

“I see, you’ve got them all under perfect control, right?”

“It’s never been better”, Merlin shouted back with a smile and shrugged his shoulders.

Soon, he had to break off the eye contact since eleven-year-olds were really fast in all matters of dragging things around, but his smile simply didn’t want to fade away, even hours after meeting this Santa.

Merlin couldn’t place his finger on what exactly it was, but something, some smart intuition of his, simply knew that he would see this Santa again, that they weren’t quite done yet.

And in fact, he was right.

The only thing he hadn’t anticipated?

That it would happen so, so soon.


End file.
